“The most important thing is this: to be willing at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we can become.” — Charles Du Bois

Any of us who have viewed the movie The Secret, read or studied A Course in Miracle’s or have done any amount of self-improvement may it have been in Technology of Kabbalah, NLP, Landmark or good ol’ Amway, are familiar with the concept that we need to let the old leaves of our old selves and lives shed so that we can bloom into a new reality of self and manifest the life that we are desiring. No matter the course we choose to birth this transformation, one thing is evident — one aspect of our life (self) must die in order to give birth to the desired life (self). But how do we do this? And more at question here is how does something such as tantra assist us on this mission?

What is Tantra?

(the basics)

Tantra is about the expansion of  human consciousness. Just today I was listening to Sasha Cobra one of my favorite teachers and she was sharing the power of  releasing traumas from the physical body. Even if you are someone who has not experienced a “significant” trauma (i.e. rape, sexual abuse, beatings, deaths of loved ones, etc.) you may have blocked energies and traumas from childhood programming (an over religious family, controlling, etc) or grown up where stability was at question, even past life traumas come into play and block our energies in current bodies. Tantra expands our consciousness through exercises, breath-work and bodywork by releasing these traumas, which completely change our thought process once they have been let go of.  This then helps us to connect to our Divine State of True Being.

It takes great courage to set foot down the healing path of Tantra as it does any healing path. In order to access the holistic aspects of Tantra one  needs to be willing to be “Naked in Every Way.” Meaning that we are willing to bring our souls as well as our bodies to a sharing of the depths of all the levels of our personalities. Physical, emotional, mental, energetic and soul levels.  This is how we can achieve divine presence or union with the creator, the universe itself. Tantra is an ancient sacred practice that is laced throughout many world cultures that teaches us how to achieve this divine presence.

However, it is only accessible when certain things are in place for the healing to happen so that the union will manifest.

Safety – Vitally important that each party feels safe and supported in the environment. Proper boundary setting is a must in ALL relationships. When entering into any sacred holistic healing all parties need to feel safe and be able to establish what they are comfortable with and what their expectations may be for the events to follow. These boundaries MUST ALWAYS be respected so that healing may happen.

Responsibility – You and your teacher, partner must be responsible for your own beliefs, decisions and consciousness. Simply put, be responsible for the energy that you bring to the event. May it be a yoga, breath-work or energy based session or a tantric date night with your lover, be responsible for your energy, thoughts, actions and emotions.

Communication – One has to be willing to express their own needs in anyway that they can. Through words, sounds, or gestures. A tantric experience will help those who do not know how to lovingly communicate their needs to be able to, but participants on both sides must be willing to listen to and express when encouraged either by their teacher/partner or by their inner voice.

Trust and Surrender– Tantra is about loving, living and being. The above areas are there mainly to assist with helping the participants in the most important area of all, trust and surrender. Our society teaches us that we should not trust or surrender yet the only way to fully embrace bliss and the divine, which will expand our consciousness and weave together all aspects of our physical experience and souls manifest, is to trust and to surrender.  Often what is not thought of is that the trust that we must heal and learn to embrace is not that of trusting everyone on our life path but of trusting ourselves and our ability to make healthy decisions for ourselves. If we have a partner in life then it is vital to be able to express ourselves and trust them as well. With trust comes surrender. The power one can experience with deep vulnerability and surrender is ‘Awh’ striking. To be able to express our needs, our pains, and our hearts and know that we will be accepted, loved and supported is part of any healing tantric path.

What tantra is not.

When I was asked this question recently by Dr. Michael Harris for a Blog Talk radio show “Is your love life FAST FOOD or GOURMET?” I instantly found myself examining the world and every aspect of life. Where is Tantra not? Would be a better question, however the point of the question is to assist in clearing up the ill use of this sacred holistic art. Tantra has gotten a lot of negative media recently and most of this is caused because of our societies Puritan heritage which even though we don’t want to admit it still shapes our social morals and ideas/thinking in many ways.

Tantra is not solely about sex. Recently there has been much talk about tantric sacred sites and much of what has been revealed is untrue of the consciousness of what was and is happening around the world at these places. Tantra encompasses all of life. It is about weaving all aspects of our life experiences together into bliss and thus increasing our vibration so that we come closer to that Christ- Consciousness or Divine Being (union with God or the Higher Self). Let me give you some items to ponder that are all very tantric living based, meaning that when experiencing life from a state of bliss, a healed body, mind and soul, that are communicating properly one might be able to experience. (real world scenarios too)

• Imagine if you could be sitting in a board meeting and feeling a level of bliss that you experience when you are with your lover? Would that not be nice?
• What if you could go to your child’s soccer game and be fully present with no worries of the work day to come, the proposal that needs to be finished, the house chores or bills? You were just there feeling, experiencing your child’s game. How would this affect your life and the life of your loved ones?
• Imagine that in times of what seems to be chaos you actually could breathe deeply and not react in a nervous, stressful way, but instead approach the situation, no matter what it was with love and a higher level of seeing what was happening?
• What if the one individual who you have the most bitterness toward you started seeing through loves eyes? Would these scenarios change your current reality into something more pleasurable?

Tantra awakens us to this reality. Sex is used often in tantric teachings to help heighten vibrational levels, heal traumas, unite souls, and teach about bliss, communication, love and presence among many other things. Sacred work is holistic based. No matter what path a practitioner or teacher chooses to assist their clients in achieving a reality of bliss verses chaos, it is all designed according to the gifts of the teachers and the needs and agreement that they have discussed with their clients.

When working with couple’s tantra does indeed go to the depth of full union often(for the client couple). Often, this is not in a first session unless each of the partners has been doing solo work and coaching outside of the union session. Most of the couple’s sessions that I do, for example, are focused on establishing healthy communication, soul appreciation, and breath work, basic tantric massage to assist in love making and in helping the partners heal each other through the body of the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual wounds of the past.  I also teach basic quantum core energtix , which focuses on the energy centers and aura field. Clear blockages and softening the kundalini so that it might uncoil in a healthy manner.

 (It’s important to make known that one does not have to have an active partner or any partner at all to practice tantra or work with a teacher/practitioner or sex coach. That would be like saying you have to be married to go to church and read the bible. Tantra is like any other spiritual practice it is about YOU and YOU alone. Through the union of all aspects of yourself you further open to love and others. Personally I offer, individual goddess sessions, extraordinary gentlemen sessions, couples sessions, programs for all and sex and life coaching (in person and on the phone) as well many bio-energetics based sessions to assist in clearing energy and harmonizing the chakras.)

Through the practice of Tantra which is a spiritual science that makes use of the magical powers of our sexual energy one can experience a holistic healing of Mind, Body, and Soul that traditional medicine is blind too. It has been my personal tale and that of many of my friends, lovers, family and clients that Tantra in its paradox’s and social Taboos is perhaps one of the most powerful transformation tools known to humankind.

Listen to the October 22, 2012 BlogTalk radio Show

“Is your love life FAST FOOD or GOURMET?”